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Tuesday, 27th July 2004

109101878123414856

Web Search--Google--Outage
Horrors! Google AWOL!
Source: Guardian Unlimited
A World Without Google
"On Monday, Google went down - and we suddenly realised just how empty life would be without it ..."
++
Source: St. Petersburg Times
Tampa Columnist Ernest Hooper
"My head almost exploded Monday morning. I could not get the Google site to run searches, and it was driving my crazy. At one point, my hands started shaking. Just the thought of not having my Google brings back a slight tremble. Sorry, other search engines just won't do."
++
Source: Business2blog
Searching for Google
"The collective intelligence of everyone under 35 just dropped by about a third...
A denial-of-service attack? A nefarious plot orchestrated by librarians? How would I know, Google is offline!"
++
Source: ZDNet
Loss of Google Sends Users Scrambling
"Jonathan Bruce was in San Francisco trying to search for articles on the Democratic National Convention and Google's plans for a stock offering when he got the error message as well. Bruce, like many, was forced to seek other ways of finding the information."
++
You've heard it here on ResourceShelf before so we are loathe to repeat ourselves at length, however... Reliance on a single Internet search tool (yes, even Google) may leave you high and dry at worst...or at the very least, short-change you by failing to give you the best information or most complete information. (Do you reach for the same exact title every time you use your ready reference collection? Uh...didn't think so.) Use other tools (general and specialized databases) regularly to familiarize yourself with their features. Check out which subscription databases might be freely available to you via your local public, school, academic, or special library. You might actually find something that is more useful than Google. And you will be less likely to go into a swoon the next time you see a dreaded "service error 27" message instead of the 423,654 search results you expected when you queried Google. --The ResourceShelf Editors

(Note to information professionals: At least Google had a legitimate reason for being unavailable. We have no such excuse. It's been said here before -- numerous times. We need to do a better job of not only educating our customers but, even more critically, of reaching out to the "silent majority" which remains largely clueless about the products and services offered by today's libraries, and the skills of the professionals who work there. Google can teach the library world plenty about how
to become indispensible.
See Also: Search Engine Overlap, Not as Great as You Think (via SearchDay)
See Also: Oh No! Librarians Using Google Page Totals to Determine Popularity (via Library Stuff)

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